Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-08-12


as If they do not want it saved at al.
1 do not know but the old way Of
making ministers of the Gospel is
BETTER collegiate education and an
apprenticeship under the care and
nome attention of some earnest, aged
Christian minister, the young man get
ting the patriarch's spirit and assisting
him in his religious service. Young
lawyers study with old lawyers, young
physicians with old physicians, and T
believe it would be agreat help if every
young man studying for the. Gospel
ministry could put himself in the
home. and heart, and sympathy, and
under the benediction and perpetual
presence of Christian minister.
But remark again, the religious dis
course of the future will be an awaken
ing sermon. From altar rail to the
front doorstep under that sermon an
audience will get up and start for
Heaven. There will be in it MANY a
staccato passage. 1t will not be q
lullaby; it will be battle charge. Men
will drop their sins, for they will feel
the hot breath of pursuing retribution
on the back of their necks. It will be
sympathetic with all the physical dis
tresses as we'll as the spiritual distresses
of the world. Christ not only preached
but He healed paralysis, and He healed
epilepsy, and He healed the dumb and
the blind and ten lepers.
That religious discourse of the future
will be an everyday sermon, going
right down into every mans life, and t
will teach him how TO vote, how to
bargain, how to pillow, how to do any
work he is called to, how to WELD
trowel and pen and pencil and yardstick
and plane. And it will teach women
how to preside over their households.
and how to educate their children, and
how to initiate Miriam and Esther and
Vashti and Eunice, the mother of Tim
othy, and Mary, the mother of Christ !;
and those women who on northern and
southern battlefelds were mistaken by
the wounded for angels of mercy fresh
from the throne of God.
Yes, I have to tell you the religious
discourse of the future will be q re-
ported sermon. If you have any ida
that printing was invented simplyto
print secular books, and stenogrspy,
and photography were contrived merely
to set forth secular ideas, you are mis-
taken. The printing press is to De the
great agency of Gospel proclamation.
1t is high time that good men, instead
of denouncing the press, emyioy it to
scatter forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The vast majority Of people in our
cities do not come to church, and moth
ing but the printed sermon can reach
them and call them to pardon and life
and peace and heaven.
So cannot understand the nervous
ness of some of my brethren of the
ministry. When they see newspaper
man coming in they say: "Alas! there
is reporter" Every added re-
porter is 10000. $4,000, 100000
immortal souls added to the auditory.
The time will come when all the village,
town, and city newspapers will repro
duce the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and
sermons preached on the Sabbath will
reverberate all around the world, and
some by type and some by voice-all
nations will be evangelical.
The practical bearing of this is upon
those who are engaged in Christian
work, not only upon theological stu
dents and young ministers, but upon all
who preach the Gospel, and all who
exhort in meetings, and that is all of
you if you are doing your duty. Do
you exhort in prayer meeting? Be
short and be spirited. Do you teach in
Bible class? Though you have to study
every night be interesting. Do you &C
cost people on the subject of religion
in their homes or in public places?
Study adroitness and use common sense
The most graceful and most beautiful
thing on earth is the religion of Jesus
Christ, and if you awkwardly present
it, it is defamation. We must do our
work rapidly, and we must do it effect
lively. Soon our time for work will be
gone.
A dying Christian took out his watch
and gave it to friend and said: "Take
that watch, have no more use for it.;
time is ended for me and eternity be-
gins" Oh, my friends, when our
watch has licked away for lis the last
moment, and our clock has struck for
lis the last hour, may it be found we
did our work we'll, that we did it in the
very best way, and whether we preached
the Gospel in pulpits, or taught Sab
bath classes, or administered to the sick
as physicians, or bargained as mer-
chants, or pleaded the law as attorneys,
or were busy as artisans, or as husband
men, or as mechanics, or were like
Martha called to give meal to hun
cry Christ, or like Hannah to make q
coat for q prophet, or like Deborah to
rouse the courage of some timid Barak
in the Lords conflict, we did our work
in such way that it will stand the test
of tie Judgment. And in the long pro-
cession of the redeemed that march
around the throne, may it be found
there are many there brought to God
through our instrumentality and in
whose rescue we are exultant.
But, o you unsaved, wait not for that
| religious discourse of the future. It
may come after your obsequies. 1t may
come after the stonecutter has chiseled
our name on the slab fifty years before.
Do not wait for great steamer of the
Cunard or White Star Line to take you
off the wreck, but hail the first craft
! with however a low mast and however
small hulk and however poor rudder
and however weak captain. Better a